1. THE WORLD AS I SEE IT
Albert Einstein
PREFACE TO ORIGINAL EDITION
Only individuals have a sense of responsibility. --Nietzsche
This book does not represent a complete collection of the articles, addresses,
and pronouncements of Albert Einstein; it is a selection made with a definite
object-- namely, to give a picture of a man. To-day this man is being drawn,
contrary to his own intention, into the whirlpool of political passions and
contemporary history. As a result, Einstein is experiencing the fate that so
many of the great men of history experienced: his character and opinions are
being exhibited to the world in an utterly distorted form.
To forestall this fate is the real object of this book. It meets a wish that has
constantly been expressed both by Einstein's friends and by the wider public.
It contains work belonging to the most various dates-- the article on "The
International of Science" dates from the year 1922, the address on "The
Principles of Scientific Research" from 1923, the "Letter to an Arab" from
1930--and the most various spheres, held together by the unity of the
personality which stands behind all these utterances. Albert Einstein believes
in humanity, in a peaceful world of mutual helpfulness, and in the high mission
of science. This book is intended as a plea for this belief at a time which
compels every one of us to overhaul his mental attitude and his ideas.
J. H.
INTRODUCTION TO ABRIDGED
EDITION
In his biography of Einstein Mr. H. Gordou Garbedian relates that an
American newspaper man asked the great physicist for a definition of his
theory of relativity in one sentence. Einstein replied that it would take him
three days to give a short definition of relativity. He might well have added
that unless his questioner had an intimate acquaintance with mathematics and
physics, the definition would be incomprehensible.
To the majority of people Einstein's theory is a complete mystery. Their
attitude towards Einstein is like that of Mark Twain towards the writer of a
work on mathematics: here was a man who had written an entire book of
which Mark could not understand a single sentence. Einstein, therefore, is
great in the public eye partly because he has made revolutionary discoveries
which cannot be translated into the common tongue. We stand in proper awe
of a man whose thoughts move on heights far beyond our range, whose
achievements can be measured only by the few who are able to follow his
reasoning and challenge his conclusions.
There is, however, another side to his personality. It is revealed in the
addresses, letters, and occasional writings brought together in this book.
These fragments form a mosaic portrait of Einstein the man. Each one is, in a
sense, complete in itself; it presents his views on some aspect of progress,
education, peace, war, liberty, or other problems of universal interest. Their
combined effect is to demonstrate that the Einstein we can all understand is no
less great than the Einstein we take on trust.

2. Einstein has asked nothing more from life than the freedom to pursue his
researches into the mechanism of the universe. His nature is of rare simplicity
and sincerity; he always has been, and he remains, genuinely indifferent to
wealth and fame and the other prizes so dear to ambition. At the same time he
is no recluse, shutting himself off from the sorrows and agitations of the world
around him. Himself familiar from early years with the handicap of poverty
and with some of the worst forms of man's inhumanity to man, he has never
spared himself in defence of the weak and the oppressed. Nothing could be
more unwelcome to his sensitive and retiring character than the glare of the
platform and the heat of public controversy, yet he has never hesitated when
he felt that his voice or influence would help to redress a wrong. History,
surely, has few parallels with this introspective mathematical genius who
laboured unceasingly as an eager champion of the rights of man.
Albert Einstein was born in 1879 at Ulm. When he was four years old his
father, who owned an electrochemical works, moved to Munich, and two
years later the boy went to school, experiencing a rigid, almost military, type
of discipline and also the isolation of a shy and contemplative Jewish child
among Roman Catholics-- factors which made a deep and enduring
impression. From the point of view of his teachers he was an unsatisfactory
pupil, apparently incapable of progress in languages, history, geography, and
other primary subjects. His interest in mathematics was roused, not by his
instructors, but by a Jewish medical student, Max Talmey, who gave him a
book on geometry, and so set him upon a course of enthusiastic study which
made him, at the age of fourteen, a better mathematician than his masters. At
this stage also he began the study of philosophy, reading and re-reading the
words of Kant and other metaphysicians.
Business reverses led the elder Einstein to make a fresh start in Milan, thus
introducing Albert to the joys of a freer, sunnier life than had been possible in
Germany. Necessity, however, made this holiday a brief one, and after a few
months of freedom the preparation for a career began. It opened with an
effort, backed by a certificate of mathematical proficiency given by a teacher
in the Gymnasium at Munich, to obtain admission to the Polytechnic Academy
at Zurich. A year passed in the study of necessary subjects which he had
neglected for mathematics, but once admitted, the young Einstein became
absorbed in the pursuit of science and philosophy and made astonishing
progress. After five distinguished years at the Polytechnic he hoped to step
into the post of assistant professor, but found that the kindly words of the
professors who had stimulated the hope did not materialize.
Then followed a weary search for work, two brief interludes of teaching, and
a stable appointment as examiner at the Confederate Patent Office at Berrie.
Humdrum as the work was, it had the double advantage of providing a
competence and of leaving his mind free for the mathematical speculations
which were then taking shape in the theory of relativity. In 1905 his first
monograph on the theory was published in a Swiss scientific journal, the
Annalen der Physik. Zurich awoke to the fact that it possessed a genius in
the form of a patent office clerk, promoted him to be a lecturer at the
University and four years later--in 1909--installed him as Professor.
His next appointment was (in 1911) at the University of Prague, where he
remained for eighteen months. Following a brief return to Zurich, he went,
early in 1914, to Berlin as a professor in the Prussian Academy of Sciences
and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Theoretical Physics. The
period of the Great War was a trying time for Einstein, who could not conceal
his ardent pacifism, but he found what solace he could in his studies. Later
events brought him into the open and into many parts of the world, as an
exponent not only of pacifism but also of world-disarmament and the cause of

3. Jewry. To a man of such views, as passionately held as they were by Einstein,
Germany under the Nazis was patently impossible. In 1933 Einstein made his
famous declaration: "As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country
where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law
are
the rule." For a time he was a homeless exile; after offers had come to him
from Spain and France and Britain, he settled in Princeton as Professor of
Mathematical and Theoretical Physics, happy in his work, rejoicing in a free
environment, but haunted always by the tragedy of war and oppression.
The World As I See It, in its original form, includes essays by Einstein on
relativity and cognate subjects. For reasons indicated above, these have been
omitted in the present edition; the object of this reprint is simply to reveal to
the general reader the human side of one of the most dominating figures of our
day.
I
The World As I See It
The Meaning of Life
What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer
this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in
putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his
fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost
disqualified for life.
The World as I see it
What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a
brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he
feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist
for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all
our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with
whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times
every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours
of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in
the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly
drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am
engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard
class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I
also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.
In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever.
Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance
with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but
not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a
continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the
hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the
sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us
from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of
life in which humour, above all, has its due place.
To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation
generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view.
And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his

4. endeavours and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease
and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call more proper
for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time
after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,
Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind,
of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art
and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary
objects of human endeavour--property, outward success, luxury--have
always seemed to me contemptible.
My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always
contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct
contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait
and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my
immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never
lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude--a feeling
which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without regret,
of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's
fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of
geniality and light-heartedness ; on the other hand, he is largely independent of
the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to
take his stand on such insecure foundations.
My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an
individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the
recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no
fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire,
unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I have
with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware
that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man
should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But
the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader. An
autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force
always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule
that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have
always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and
Russia to-day. The thing that has brought discredit upon the prevailing form of
democracy in Europe to-day is not to be laid to the door of the democratic
idea as such, but to lack of stability on the part of the heads of governments
and to the impersonal character of the electoral system. I believe that in this
respect the United States of America have found the right way. They have a
responsible President who is elected for a sufficiently long period and has
sufficient powers to be really responsible. On the other hand, what I value in
our political system is the more extensive provision that it makes for the
individual in case of illness or need. The really valuable thing in the pageant of
human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the
personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such
remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military
system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation
to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been
given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This
plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.
Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does
by the name of patriotism--how I hate them! War seems to me a mean,
contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such
an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion
of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago,

5. had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by
commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press.
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental
emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who
knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good
as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery--even if
mixed with fear--that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of
something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest
reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in
their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that
constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a
deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes
his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves.
An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my
comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or
absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of
life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the
single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the
reason that manifests itself in nature.
The Liberty of Doctrine--à propos of the Guntbel Case
Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few;
lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who
genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small. Nature scatters her common
wares with a lavish hand, but the choice sort she produces but seldom.
We all know that, so why complain? Was it not ever thus and will it not ever
thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what Nature gives as one finds it.
But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind
characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to
individual and gives a society its particular tone. Each of us has to do his little
bit towards transforming this spirit of the times.
Compare the spirit which animated the youth in our universities a hundred
years ago with that prevailing to-day. They had faith in the amelioration of
human society, respect for every honest opinion, the tolerance for which our
classics had lived and fought. In those days men strove for a larger political
unity, which at that time was called Germany. It was the students and the
teachers at the universities who kept these ideals alive.
To-day also there is an urge towards social progress, towards tolerance and
freedom of thought, towards a larger political unity, which we to-day call
Europe. But the students at our universities have ceased as completely as their
teachers to enshrine the hopes and ideals of the nation. Anyone who looks at
our times coolly and dispassionately must admit this.
We are assembled to-day to take stock of ourselves. The external reason for
this meeting is the Gumbel case. This apostle of justice has written about
unexpiated political crimes with devoted industry, high courage, and
exemplary fairness, and has done the community a signal service by his
books. And this is the man whom the students, and a good many of the staff,
of his university are to-day doing their best to expel.
Political passion cannot be allowed to go to such lengths. I am convinced that
every man who reads Herr Gumbel's books with an open mind will get the
same impression from them as I have. Men like him are needed if we are ever
to build up a healthy political society.

6. Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself
read, not by what others tell him.
If that happens, this Gumbel case, after an unedifying beginning, may still do
good.
Good and Evil
It is right in principle that those should be the best loved who have contributed
most to the elevation of the human race and human life. But, if one goes on to
ask who they are, one finds oneself in no inconsiderable difficulties. In the
case of political, and even of religious, leaders, it is often very doubtful
whether they have done more good or harm. Hence I most seriously believe
that one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to
do and thus indirectly elevating them. This applies most of all to the great
artist, but also in a lesser degree to the scientist. To be sure, it is not the
fruits
of scientific research that elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to
understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive. It would surely be
absurd to judge the value of the Talmud, for instance, by its intellectual fruits.
The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure
and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self.
Society and Personality
When we survey our lives and endeavours we soon observe that almost the
whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other
human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social
animals. We eat food that others have grow, wear clothes that others have
made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge
and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium
of a language which others have created. Without language our mental
capacities wuuld be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals;
we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the
beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from
birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a
degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the
significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as
a
member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual
existence from the cradle to the grave.
A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings,
thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.
We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at
first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities.
And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable
things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be
traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The
use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine--each was
discovered by one man.
Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society--nay,

7. even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms.
Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward
development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual
personality without the nourishing soil of the community.
The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the
individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion. It has been said
very justly that Græco-Europeo-American culture as a whole, and in
particular its brilliant flowering in the Italian Renaissance, which put an end to
the stagnation of mediæval Europe, is based on the liberation and comparative
isolation of the individual.
Let us now consider the times in which we live. How does society fare, how
the individual? The population of the civilized countries is extremely dense as
compared with former times; Europe to-day contains about three times as
many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of great men has
decreased out of all proportion. Only a few individuals are known to the
masses as personalities, through their creative achievements. Organization has
to some extent taken the place of the great man, particularly in the technical
sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific.
The lack of outstanding figures is particularly striking in the domain of art.
Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely lost their popular
appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but the independence of spent
and the sense of justice of the citizen have to a great extent declined. The
democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such independence,
has in many places been shaken, dictatorships have sprung up and are
tolerated, because men's sense of the dignity and the rights of the individual is
no longer strong enough. In two weeks the sheep-like masses can be worked
up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that the men are
prepared to put on uniform and kill and be billed, for the sake of the worthless
aims of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the
most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which
civilized mankind is suffering to-day. No wonder there is no lack of prophets
who prophesy the early eclipse of our civilization. I am not one of these
pessimists; I believe that better times are coming. Let me shortly state my
reasons for such confidence.
In my opinion, the present symptoms of decadence are explained by the fact
that the development of industry and machinery has made the struggle for
existence very much more severe, greatly to the detriment of the free
development of the individual. But the development of machinery means that
less and less work is needed from the individual for the satisfaction of the
community's needs. A planned division of labour is becoming more and more
of a crying necessity, and this division will lead to the material security of the
individual. This security and the spare time and energy which the individual will
have at his command can be made to further his development. In this way the
community may regain its health, and we will hope that future historians will
explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as the childhood ailments
of an aspiring humanity, due entirely to the excessive speed at which
civilization was advancing.
Address at the Grave of H. A. Lorentz
It is as the representative of the German-speaking academic world, and in
particular the Prussian Academy of Sciences, but above all as a pupil and
affectionate admirer that I stand at the grave of the greatest and noblest man
of our times. His genius was the torch which lighted the way from the

8. teachings of Clerk Maxwell to the achievements of contemporary physics, to
the fabric of which he contributed valuable materials and methods.
His life was ordered like a work of art down to the smallest detail. His
never-failing kindness and magnanimity and his sense of justice, coupled with
an intuitive understanding of people and things, made him a leader in any
sphere he entered. Everyone followed him gladly, for they felt that he never
set out to dominate but always simply to be of use. His work and his example
will live on as an inspiration and guide to future generations.
H. A. Lorentz's work in the cause of International
Co-operation
With the extensive specialization of scientific research which the nineteenth
century brought about, it has become rare for a man occupying a leading
position in one of the sciences to manage at the same time to do valuable
service to the community in the sphere of international organization and
international. politics. Such service demands not only energy, insight, and a
reputation based on solid achievements, but also a freedom from national
prejudice and a devotion to the common ends of all, which have become rare
in our times. I have met no one who combined all these qualities in himself so
perfectly as H. A. Lorentz. The marvellous thing about the effect of his
personality was this: Independent and headstrong natures, such as are
particularly common among men of learning, do not readily bow to another's
will and for the most part only accept his leadership grudgingly. But, when
Lorentz is in the presidential chair, an atmosphere of happy co-operation is
invariably created, however much those present may differ in their aims and
habits of thought. The secret of this success lies not only in his swift
comprehension of people and things and his marvellous command of
language, but above all in this, that one feels that his whole heart is in the
business in hand, and that, when he is at work, he has room for nothing else in
his mind. Nothing disarms the recalcitrant so much as this.
Before the war Lorentz's activities in the cause of international relations were
confined to presiding at congresses of physicists. Particularly noteworthy
among these were the Solvay Congresses, the first two of which were held at
Brussels in 1909 and 1912. Then came the European war, which was a
crushing blow to all who had the improvement of human relations in general at
heart. Even before the war was over, and still more after its end, Lorentz
devoted himself to the work of reconciliation. His efforts were especially
directed towards the re-establishment of fruitful and friendly co-operation
between men of learning and scientific societies. An outsider can hardly
conceive what uphill work this is. The accumulated resentment of the war
period has not yet died down, and many influential men persist in the
irreconcilable attitude into which they allowed themselves to be driven by the
pressure of circumstances. Hence Lorentz's efforts resemble those of a doctor
with a recalcitrant patient who refuses to take the medicines carefully
prepared for his benefit.
But Lorentz is not to be deterred, once he has recognized a course of action
as the right one. The moment the war was over, he joined the governing body
of the "Conseil de recherche," which was founded by the savants of the
victorious countries, and from which the savants and learned societies of the
Central Powers were excluded. His object in taking this step, which caused
great offence to the academic world of the Central Powers, was to influence
this institution in such a way that it could be expanded into something truly
international. He and other right-minded men succeeded, after repeated
efforts, in securing the removal of the offensive exclusion-clause from the
statutes of the "Conseil." The goal, which is the restoration of normal and

9. fruitful co-operation between learned societies, is, however, not yet attained,
because the academic world of the Central Powers, exasperated by nearly
ten years of exclusion from practically all international gatherings, has got into
a habit of keeping itself to itself. Now, however, there are good grounds for
hoping that the ice will soon be broken, thanks to the tactful efforts of
Lorentz, prompted by pure enthusiasm for the good cause.
Lorentz has also devoted his energies to the service of international cultural
ends in another way, by consenting to serve on the League of Nations
Commission for international intellectual co-operation, which was called into
existence some five years ago with Bergson as chairman. For the last year
Lorentz has presided over the Commission, which, with the active support of
its subordinate, the Paris Institute, is to act as a go-between in the domain of
intellectual and artistic work among the various spheres of culture. There too
the beneficent influence of this intelligent, humane, and modest personality,
whose unspoken but faithfully followed advice is, "Not mastery but service,"
will lead people in the right way.
May his example contribute to the triumph of that spirit !
In Honour of Arnold Berliner's Seventieth Birthday
(Arnold Berliner is the editor of the periodical Die
Naturrvissenschaften.)
I should like to take this opportunity of telling my friend Berliner and the
readers of this paper why I rate him and his work so highly. It has to be done
here because it is one's only chance of getting such things said; since our
training in objectivity has led to a taboo on everything personal, which we
mortals may transgress only on quite exceptional occasions such as the
present one.
And now, after this dash for liberty, back to the objective! The province of
scientifically determined fact has been enormously extended, theoretical
knowledge has become vastly more profound in every department of science.
But the assimilative power of the human intellect is and remains strictly limited.
Hence it was inevitable that the activity of the individual investigator should be
confined to a smaller and smaller section of human knowledge. Worse still, as
a result of this specialization, it is becoming increasingly difficult for even a
rough general grasp of science as a whole, without which the true spirit of
research is inevitably handicapped, to keep pace with progress. A situation is
developing similar to the one symbolically represented in the Bible by the
story of the Tower of Babel. Every serious scientific worker is painfully
conscious of this involuntary relegation to an ever-narrowing sphere of
knowledge, which is threatening to deprive the investigator of his broad
horizon and degrade him to the level of a mechanic.
We have all suffered under this evil, without making any effort to mitigate it.
But Berliner has come to the rescue, as far as the German-speaking world is
concerned, in the most admirable way: He saw that the existing popular
periodicals were sufficient to instruct and stimulate the layman; but he also
saw that a first-class, well-edited organ was needed for the guidance of the
scientific worker who desired to be put sufficiently au courant of
developments in scientific problems, methods, and results to be able to form a
judgment of his own. Through many years of hard work he has devoted
himself to this object with great intelligence and no less great determination,
and done us all, and science, a service for which we cannot be too grateful.

10. It was necessary for him to secure the co-operation of successful scientific
writers and induce them to say what they had to say in a form as far as
possible intelligible to non-specialists. He has often told me of the fights he
had in pursuing this object, the difficulties of which he once described to me in
the following riddle: Question : What is a scientific author? Answer: A cross
between a mimosa and a porcupine.* Berliner's achievement would have
been impossible but for the peculiar intensity of his longing for a clear,
comprehensive view of the largest possible area of scientific country. This
feeling also drove him to produce a text-book of physics, the fruit of many
years of strenuous work, of which a medical student said to me the other day:
"I don't know how I should ever have got a clear idea of the principles of
modern physics in the time at my disposal without this book."
Berliner's fight for clarity and comprehensiveness of outlook has done a great
deal to bring the problems, methods, and results of science home to many
people's minds. The scientific life of our time is simply inconceivable vzthout
his paper. It is just as important to make knowledge live and to keep it alive
as to solve specific problems. We are all conscious of what we owe to
Arnold Berliner.
*Do not be angry with me for this indiscretion, my dear Berliner. A
serious-minded man enjoys a good laugh now and then.
Popper-Lynhaus was more than a brilliant engineer and writer. He was one
of the few outstanding personalities who embody the conscience of a
generation. He has drummed it into us that society is responsible for the fate
of every individual and shown us a way to translate the consequent obligation
of the community into fact. The community or State was no fetish to him; he
based its right to demand sacrifices of the individual entirely on its duty to give
the individual personality a chance of harmonious development.
Obituary of the Surgeon, M. Katzenstein
During the eighteen years I spent in Berlin I had few close friends, and the
closest was Professor Katzenstein. For more than ten years I spent my leisure
hours during the summer months with him, mostly on his delightful yacht.
There we confided our experiences, ambitions, emotions to each other. We
both felt that this friendship was not only a blessing because each understood
the other, was enriched by him, and found ins him that responsive echo so
essential to anybody who is truly alive; it also helped to make both of us more
independent of external experience, to objectivize it more easily.
I was a free man, bound neither by many duties nor by harassing
responsibilities; my friend, on the contrary, was never free from the grip of
urgent duties and anxious fears for the fate of those in peril. If, as was
invariably the case, he had performed some dangerous operations in the
morning, he would ring up on the telephone, immediately before we got into
the boat, to enquire after the condition of the patients about whom he was
worried; I could see how deeply concerned he was for the lives entrusted to
his care. It was marvellous that this shackled outward existence did not clip
the wings of his soul; his imagination and his sense of humour were
irrepressible. He never became the typical conscientious North German,
whom the Italians in the days of their freedom used to call bestia seriosa. He
was sensitive as a youth to the tonic beauty of the lakes and woods of
Brandenburg, and as he sailed the boat with an expert hand through these
beloved and familiar surroundings he opened the secret treasure-chamber of
his heart to me--he spoke of his experiments, scientific ideas, and ambitions.
How he found time and energy for them was always a mystery to me; but the

11. passion for scientific enquiry is not to be crushed by any burdens. The man
who is possessed with it perishes sooner than it does.
There were two types of problems that engaged his attention. The first forced
itself on him out of the necessities of his practice. Thus he was always thinking
out new ways of inducing healthy muscles to take the place of lost ones, by
ingenious transplantation of tendons. He found this remarkably easy, as he
possessed an uncommonly strong spatial imagination and a remarkably sure
feeling for mechanism. How happy he was when he had succeeded in making
somebody fit for normal life by putting right the muscular system of his face,
foot, or arm! And the same when he avoided an operation, even in cases
which had been sent to him by physicians for surgical treatment in cases of
gastric ulcer by neutralizing the pepsin. He also set great store by the
treatment of peritonitis by an anti-toxic coli-serum which he discovered, and
rejoiced in the successes he achieved with it. In talking of it he often lamented
the fact that this method of treatment was not endorsed by his colleagues.
The second group of problems had to do with the common conception of an
antagonism between different sorts of tissue. He believed that he was here on
the track of a general biological principle of widest application, whose
implications he followed out with admirable boldness and persistence. Starting
out from this basic notion he discovered that osteomyelon and periosteum
prevent each other's growth if they are not separated from each other by
bone. In this way he succeeded in explaining hitherto inexplicable cases of
wounds ailing to heal, and in bringing about a cure.
This general notion of the antagonism of the tissues, especially of epithelium
and connective tissue, was the subject to which he devoted his scientific
energies, especially in the last ten years of his life. Experiments on animals and
a systematic investigation of the growth of tissues in a nutrient fluid were
carried out side by side. How thankful he was, with his hands tied as they
were by his duties, to have found such an admirable and infinitely enthusiastic
fellow-worker in Frälein Knake! He succeeded in securing wonderful results
bearing on the factors which favour the growth of epithelium at the expense of
that of connective tissue, results which may well be of decisive importance for
the study of cancer. He also had the pleasure of inspiring his own son to
become his intelligent and independent fellow-worker, and of exciting the
warm interest and co-operation of Sauerbruch just in the last years of his life,
so that he was able to die with the consoling thought that his life's work would
not perish, but would be vigorously continued on the lines he had laid down.
I for my part am grateful to fate for having given me this man, with his
inexhaustible goodness and high creative gifts, for a friend.
Congratulations to Dr. Solf
I am delighted to be able to offer you, Dr. Solf, the heartiest congratulations,
the congratulations of Lessing College, of which you have become an
indispensable pillar, and the congratulations of all who are convinced of the
need for close contact between science and art and the public which is hungry
for spiritual nourishment.
You have not hesitated to apply your energies to a field where there are no
laurels to be won, but quiet, loyal work to be done in the interests of the
general standard of intellectual and spiritual life, which is in peculiar danger
to-day owing to a variety of circumstances. Exaggerated respect for athletics,
an excess of coarse impressions which the complications of life through the
technical discoveries of recent years has brought with it, the increased severity
of the struggle for existence due to the economic crisis, the brutalization of

12. political life--all these factors are hostile to the ripening of the character and
the desire for real culture, and stamp our age as barbarous, materialistic, and
superficial. Specialization in every sphere of intellectual work is producing an
everwidening gulf between the intellectual worker and the non-specialist,
which makes it more difficult for the life of the nation to be fertilized and
enriched by the achievements of art and science.
But contact between the intellectual and the masses must not be lost. It is
necessary for the elevation of society and no less so for renewing the strength
of the intellectual worker; for the flower of science does not grow in the
desert. For this reason you, Herr Solf, have devoted a portion of your
energies to Lessing College, and we are grateful to you for doing so. And we
wish you further success and happiness in your work for this noble cause.
Of Wealth
I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity
forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The
example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine
ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts
its owners irresistibly to abuse it.
Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of
Carnegie?
Education and Educators
A letter.
Dear Miss _____,
I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript and it made
me--smile. It is clever, well observed, honest, it stands on its
own feet up to a point, and yet it is so typically feminine, by
which I mean derivative and vitiated by personal rancour. I
suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers,
who disliked me for my independence and passed me over
when they wanted assistants (I must admit that I was somewhat
less of a model student than you). But it would not have been
worth my while to write anything about my school life, still less
would I have liked to be responsible for anyone's printing or
actually reading it. Besides, one always cuts a poor figure if one
complains about others who are struggling for their place in the
sun too after their own fashion.
Therefore pocket your temperament and keep your manuscript
for your sons and daughters, m order that they may derive
consolation from it and--not give a damn for what their teachers
tell them or think of them.
Incidentally I am only coming to Princeton to research, not to
teach. There is too much education altogether, especially in
American schools. The only rational way of educating is to be an
example--of what to avoid, if one can't be the other sort.
With best wishes.
To the Schoolchildren of Japan

13. In sending this greeting to you Japanese schoolchildren, I can lay claim to a
special right to do so. For I have myself visited your beautiful country, seen its
cities and houses, its mountains and woods, and in them Japanese boys who
had learnt from them to love their country. A big fat book full of coloured
drawings by Japanese children lies always on my table.
If you get my message of greeting from all this distance, bethink you that ours
is the first age in history to bring about friendly and understanding intercourse
between people of different countries; in former times nations passed their
lives in mutual ignorance, and in fact hated or feared one another. May the
spirit of brotherly understanding gain ground more and more among them.
With this in mind I, an old man, greet you Japanese schoolchildren from afar
and hope that your generation may some day put mine to shame.
Teachers and Pupils
An address to children
(The principal art of the teacher is to awaken the joy in creation
and knowledge.)
My dear Children,
I rejoice to see you before me to-day, happy youth of a sunny and fortunate
land.
Bear in mind that the wonderful things you learn in your schools are the work
of many generations, produced by enthusiastic effort and infinite labour in
every country of the world. All this is put into your hands as your inheritance
in order that you may receive it, honour it, add to it, and one day faithfully
hand it on to your children. Thus do we mortals achieve immortality in the
permanent things which we create in common.
If you always keep that in mind you will find a meaning in life and work and
acquire the right attitude towards other nations and ages.
Paradise Lost
As late as the seventeenth century the savants and artists of all Europe were
so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that co-operation between
them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further
strengthened by the general use of the Latin language.
To-day we look back at this state of affairs as at a lost paradise. The passions
of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin
language, which once united the whole world, is dead. The men of learning
have become the chief mouthpieces of national tradition and lost their sense of
an intellectual commonwealth.
Nowadays we are faced with the curious fact that the politicians, the practical
men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they
who have created the League of Nations.
Religion and Science
Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the
satisfaction of felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this
constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their

14. development. Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human
endeavour and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may
present itself to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to
religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little
consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside
over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is
above all fear that evokes religious notions--fear of hunger, wild beasts,
sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal
connexions is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates for itself
more or less analogous beings on whose wills and actions these fearful
happenings depend. One's object now is to secure the favour of these beings
by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition
handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them
well disposed towards a mortal. I am speaking now of the religion of fear.
This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation
of a special priestly caste which sets up as a mediator between the people and
the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases the
leader or ruler whose position depends on other factors, or a privileged class,
combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the
latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common
cause in their own interests.
The social feelings are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers
and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and
fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the
social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence who
protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes, the God who, according to the
width of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of
the human race, or even life as such, the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied
longing, who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral
conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of
fear to moral religion, which is continued in the New Testament. The religions
of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily
moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a
great step in a nation's life. That primitive religions are based entirely on fear
and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against
which we must be on our guard. The truth is that they are all intermediate
types, with this reservation, that on the higher levels of social life the religion
of
morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their
conception of God. Only individuals of exceptional endowments and
exceptionally high-minded communities, as a general rule, get in any real sense
beyond this level. But there is a third state of religious experience which
belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form, and which
I will call cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to explain this feeling
to
anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic
conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the
sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in
the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison
and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The
beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of
development--e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the

15. Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of
Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of
religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's
image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on
it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who
were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases
regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists, sometimes also as saints.
Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza
are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to
another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In
my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this
feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very
different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically one is
inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and
for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the
universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the
idea of a being who interferes in the course of events--that is, if he takes the
hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear
and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and
punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are
determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot
be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the
motions it goes through. Hence science has been charged with undermining
morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behaviour should be based
effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is
necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by
fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science and
persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic religious
feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research. Only those
who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion which pioneer
work in theoretical science demands, can grasp the strength of the emotion
out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of
life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and
what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind
revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to
spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial
mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived
chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the
mentality of the men who, surrounded by a sceptical world, have shown the
way to those like-minded with themselves, scattered through the earth and the
centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid
realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to
remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious
feeling that gives a man strength of this sort. A contemporary has said, not
unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are
the only profoundly religious people.
The Religiousness of Science
You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without
a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of

16. the
naive man. For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit
and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a
child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal
relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe.
But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future,
to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing
divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the
form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals
an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic
thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This
feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in
keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question
closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.
The Plight of Science
The German-speaking countries are menaced by a danger to which those in
the know are in duty bound to call attention in the most emphatic terms. The
economic stress which political events bring in their train does not hit
everybody equally hard. Among the hardest hit are the institutions and
individuals whose material existence depends directly on the State. To this
category belong the scientific institutions and workers on whose work not
merely the well-being of science but also the position occupied by Germany
and Austria in the scale of culture very largely depends.
To grasp the full gravity of the situation it is necessary to bear in mind the
following consideration. In times of crisis people are generally blind to
everything outside their immediate necessities. For work which is directly
productive of material wealth they will pay. But science, if it is to flourish,
must
have no practical end in view. As a general rule, the knowledge and the
methods which it creates only subserve practical ends indirectly and, in many
cases, not till after the lapse of several generations. Neglect of science leads
to a subsequent dearth of intellectual workers able, in virtue of their
independent outlook and judgment, to blaze new trails for industry or adapt
themselves to new situations. Where scientific enquiry is stunted the
intellectual life of the nation dries up, which means the withering of many
possibilities of future development. This is what we have to prevent. Now that
the State has been weakened as a result of nonpolitical causes, it is up to the
economically stronger members of the community to come to the rescue
directly, and prevent the decay of scientific life.
Far-sighted men with a clear understanding of the situation have set up
institutions by which scientific work of every sort is to be kept going in
Germany and Austria. Help to make these efforts a real success. In my
teaching work I see with admiration that economic troubles have not yet
succeeded in stifling the will and the enthusiasm for scientific research. Far
from it! Indeed, it looks as if our disasters had actually quickened the
devotion to non-material goods. Everywhere people are working with burning
enthusiasm in the most difficult circumstances. See to it that the will-power
and the talents of the youth of to-day do not perish to the grievous hurt of the
community as a whole.
Fascism and Science
A letter to Signor Rocco, Minister of State, Rome.

17. My dear Sir,
Two of the most eminent and respected men of science in Italy
have applied to me in their difficulties of conscience and
requested me to write to you with the object of preventing, if
possible, a piece of cruel persecution with which men of learning
are threatened in Italy. I refer to a form of oath in which fidelity
to the Fascist system is to be promised. The burden of my
request is that you should please advise Signor Mussolini to
spare the flower of Italy's intellect this humiliation.
However much our political convictions may differ, I know that
we agree on one point: in the progressive achievements of the
European mind both of us see and love our highest good. Those
achievements are based on the freedom of thought and of
teaching, on the principle that the desire for truth must take
precedence of all other desires. It was this basis alone that
enabled our civilization to take its rise in Greece and to celebrate
its rebirth in Italy at the Renaissance. This supreme good has
been paid for by the martyr's blood of pure and great men, for
whose sake Italy is still loved and reverenced to-day.
Far be it from me to argue with you about what inroads on
human liberty may be justified by reasons of State. But the
pursuit of scientific truth, detached from the practical interests of
everyday life, ought to be treated as sacred by every
Government, and it is in the highest interests of all that honest
servants of truth should be left in peace. This is also undoubtedly
in the interests of the Italian State and its prestige in the eyes of
the world.
Hoping that my request will not fall on deaf ears, I am, etc.
A. E.
Interviewers
To be called to account publicly for everything one has said, even in jest, an
excess of high spirits, or momentary anger, fatal as it must be in the end, is yet
up to a point reasonable and natural. But to be called to account publicly for
what others have said in one's name, when one cannot defend oneself, is
indeed a sad predicament. "But who suffers such a dreadful fate?" you will
ask. Well, everyone who is of sufficient interest to the public to be pursued by
interviewers. You smile incredulously, but I have had plenty of direct
experience and will tell you about it.
Imagine the following situation. One morning a reporter comes to you and
asks you in a friendly way to tell him something about your friend N. At first
you no doubt feel something approaching indignation at such a proposal. But
you soon discover that there is no escape. If you refuse to say anything, the
man writes: "I asked one of N.'s supposedly best friends about him. But he
prudently avoided my questions. This in itself enables the reader to draw the
inevitable conclusions." There is, therefore, no escape, and you give the
following information: "Mr. N. is a cheerful, straightforward man, much liked
by all his friends. He can find a bright side to any situation. His enterprise and
industry know no bounds; his job takes up his entire energies. He is devoted
to his family and lays everything he possesses at his wife's feet. . . "
Now for the reporter's version : "Mr. N. takes nothing very seriously and has

18. a gift for making himself liked, particularly as he carefully cultivates a hearty
and ingratiating manner. He is so completely a slave to his job that he has no
time for the considerations of any non-personal subject or for any mental
activity outside it. He spoils his wife unbelievably and is utterly under her
thumb. . ."
A real reporter would make it much more spicy, but I expect this will be
enough for you and your friend N. He reads this, and some more like it, in the
paper next morning, and his rage against you knows no bounds, however
cheerful and benevolent his natural disposition may be. The injury done to him
gives you untold pain, especially as you are really fond of him.
What's your next step, my friend? If you know, tell me quickly, so that I may
adopt your method with all speed.
Thanks to America
Mr. Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen,
The splendid reception which you have accorded to me to-day puts me to the
blush in so far as it is meant for me personally, but it gives me all the more
pleasure in so far as it is meant for me as a representative of pure science. For
this gathering is an outward and visible sign that the world is no longer prone
to regard material power and wealth as the highest goods. It is gratifying that
men should feel an urge to proclaim this in an official way.
In the wonderful two months which I have been privileged to spend in your
midst in this fortunate land, I have had many opportunities of observing what a
high value men of action and of practical life attach to the efforts of science; a
good few of them have placed a considerable proportion of their fortunes and
their energies at the service of scientific enterprises and thereby contributed to
the prosperity and prestige of this country.
I cannot let this occasion pass without referring in a spirit of thankfulness to
the fact that American patronage of science is not limited by national frontiers.
Scientific enterprises all over the civilized world rejoice in the liberal support
of American institutions and individuals--a fact which is, I am sure, a source of
pride and gratification to all of you.
These tokens of an international way of thinking and feeling are particularly
welcome; for the world is to-day more than ever in need of international
thinking and feeling by its leading nations and personalities, if it is to progress
towards a better and more worthy future. I may be permitted to express the
hope that this internationalism of the American nation, which proceeds from a
high sense of responsibility, will very soon extend itself to the sphere of
politics. For without the active co-operation of the great country of the United
States in the business of regulating international relations, all efforts directed
towards this important end are bound to remain more or less ineffectual.
I thank you most heartily for this magnificent reception and, in particular, the
men of learning in this country for the cordial and friendly welcome I have
received from them. I shall always look back on these two months with
pleasure and gratitude.
The University Course at Davos
Senalores boni viri, senatus autem bestia. So a friend of mine, a Swiss
professor, once wrote in his irritable way to a university faculty which had

19. annoyed him. Communities tend to be less guided than individuals by
conscience and a sense of responsibility. What a fruitful source of suffering to
mankind this fact is! It is the cause of wars and every kind of oppression,
which fill the earth with pain, sighs, and bitterness.
And yet nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the unselfish
co-operation of many individuals. Hence the man of good will is never happier
than when some communal enterprise is afoot and is launched at the cost of
heavy sacrifices, with the single object of promoting life and culture.
Such pure joy was mine when I heard about the university courses at Davos.
A work of rescue is being carried out there, with intelligence and a wise
moderation, which is based on a grave need, though it may not be a need that
is immediately obvious to everyone. Many a young man goes to this valley
with his hopes fixed on the healing power of its sunny mountains and regains
his bodily health. But thus withdrawn for long periods from the will-hardening
discipline of normal work and a prey to morbid reflection on his physical
condition, he easily loses the power of mental effort and the sense of being
able to hold his own in the struggle for existence. He becomes a sort of
hot-house plant and, when his body is cured, often finds it difficult to get back
to normal life. Interruption of intellectual training in the formative period of
youth is very apt to leave a gap which can hardly be filled later.
Yet, as a general rule, intellectual work in moderation, so far from retarding
cure, indirectly helps it forward, just as moderate physical work does. It is in
this knowledge that the university courses are being instituted, with the object
not merely of preparing these young people for a profession but of stimulating
them to intellectual activity as such. They are to provide work, training, and
hygiene in the sphere of the mind.
Let us not forget that this enterprise is admirably calculated to establish such
relations between members of different nations as are favourable to the
growth of a common European feeling. The effects of the new institution in this
direction are likely to be all the more advantageous from the fact that the
circumstances of its birth rule out every sort of political purpose. The best
way to serve the cause of internationalism is by co-operating in some
life-giving work.
>From all these points of view I rejoice that the energy and intelligence of the
founders of the university courses at Davos have already attained such a
measure of success that the enterprise has outgrown the troubles of infancy.
May it prosper, enriching the inner lives of numbers of admirable human
beings and rescuing many from the poverty of sanatorium life!
Congratulations to a Critic
To see with one's own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the
suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one
has seen and felt in a snappy sentence or even in a cunningly wrought
word--is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation?
Greeting to G. Bernard Shaw
There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the
weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves
untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for
putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human
obduracy. Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by
subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal

20. agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this
method, who has delighted--and educated--us all.
Some Notes on my American Impressions
I must redeem my promise to say something about my impressions of this
country. That is not altogether easy for me. For it is not easy to take up the
attitude of an impartial observer when one is received with such kindness and
undeserved respect as I have been in America. First of all let me say
something on this head.
The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be
sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are
plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced
that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even
in bad taste, to select a few of them fur boundless admiration, attributing
superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate,
and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and
achievements and the reality is simply grotesque. The consciousness of this
extraordinary state of affairs would be unbearable but for one great consoling
thought: it is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as
materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose ambitions lie wholly in the
intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are
ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My
experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in
America, which is usually decried as a particularly materialistic country. After
this digression I come to my proper theme, in the hope that no more weight
will be attached to my modest remarks than they deserve.
What first strikes the visitor with amazement is the superiority of this country
in matters of technics and organization. Objects of everyday use are more
solid than in Europe, houses infinitely more convenient in arrangement.
Everything is designed to save human labour. Labour is expensive, because
the country is sparsely inhabited in comparison with its natural resources. The
high price of labour was the stimulus which evoked the marvellous
development of technical devices and methods of work. The opposite
extreme is illustrated by over-populated China or India, where the low price
of labour has stood in the way of the development of machinery. Europe is
half-way between the two. Once the machine is sufficiently highly developed it
becomes cheaper in the end than the cheapest labour. Let the Fascists in
Europe, who desire on narrow-minded political grounds to see their own
particular countries more densely populated, take heed of this. The anxious
care with which the United States keep out foreign goods by means of
prohibitive tariffs certainly contrasts oddly with this notion.…But an
innocent visitor must not be expected to rack his brains too much, and, when
all is said and done, it is not absolutely certain that every question admits of a
rational answer.
The second thing that strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life.
The smile on the faces of the people in photographs is symbolical of one of
the American's greatest assets. He is friendly, confident, optimistic,
and--without envy. The European finds intercourse with Americans easy and
agreeable.
Compared with the American, the European is more critical, more
self-conscious, less goodhearted and helpful, more isolated, more fastidious in
his amusements and his reading, generally more or less of a pessimist.
Great importance attaches to the material comforts of life, and peace,

21. freedom from care, security are all sacrificed to them. The American lives for
ambition, the future, more than the European. Life for him is always becoming,
never being. In this respect he is even further removed from the Russian and
the Asiatic than the European is. But there is another respect in which he
resembles the Asiatic more than the European does: he is lest of an
individualist than the European--that is, from the psychological, not the
economic, point of view.
More emphasis is laid on the "we" than the "I." As a natural corollary of this,
custom and convention are very powerful, and there is much more uniformity
both in outlook on life and in moral and æsthetic ideas among Americans than
among Europeans. This fact is chiefly responsible for America's economic
superiority over Europe. Co-operation and the division of labour are carried
through more easily and with less friction than in Europe, whether in the
factory or the university or in private good works. This social sense may be
partly due to the English tradition.
In apparent contradiction to this stands the fact that the activities of the State
are comparatively restricted as compared with Europe. The European is
surprised to find the telegraph, the telephone, the railways, and the schools
predominantly in private hands. The more social attitude of the individual,
which I mentioned just now, makes this possible here. Another consequence
of this attitude is that the extremely unequal distribution of property leads to
no intolerable hardships. The social conscience of the rich man is much more
highly developed than in Europe. He considers himself obliged as a matter of
course to place a large portion of his wealth, and often of his own energies
too, at the disposal of the community, and public opinion, that all-powerful
force, imperiously demands it of him. Hence the most important cultural
functions can be left to private enterprise, and the part played by the State in
this country is, comparatively, a very restricted one.
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by
the Prohibition laws. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be
enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this
country is closely connected with this.
There is also another way in which Prohibition, in my opinion, has led to the
enfeeblement of the State. The public-house is a place which gives people a
chance to exchange views and ideas on public affairs. As far as I can see,
people here have no chance of doing this, the result being that the Press,
which is mostly controlled by definite interests, has an excessive influence over
public opinion.
The over-estimation of money is still greater in this country than in Europe, but
appears to me to be on the decrease. It is at last beginning to be realized that
great wealth is not necessary for a happy and satisfactory life.
As regards artistic matters, I have been genuinely impressed by the good taste
displayed in the modern buildings and in articles of common use; on the other
hand, the visual arts and music have little place in the life of the nation as
compared with Europe.
I have a warm admiration for the achievements of American institutes of
scientific research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing
superiority of American research-work exclusively to superior wealth; zeal,
patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent for co-operation play an
important part in its successes. One more observation to finish up with. The
United States is the most powerful technically advanced country in the world

22. to-day. Its influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely
incalculable. But America is a large country and its people have so far not
shown much interest in great international problems, among which the
problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if
only in the essential interests of the Americans. The last war has shown that
there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies
of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize
that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The
part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end
to lead to disaster all round.
Reply to the Women of America
An American Women's League felt called upon to protest against
Einstein's visit to their country. They received the following answer.
Never yet have I experienced from the fair sex such energetic rejection of all
advances; or, if I have, never from so many at once.
But are they not quite right, these watchful citizenesses? Why should one open
one's doors to a person who devours hard-boiled capitalists with as much
appetite and gusto as the Cretan Minotaur in days gone by devoured luscious
Greek maidens, and on top of that is low-down enough to reject every sort of
war, except the unavoidable war with one's own wife? Therefore give heed to
your clever and patriotic women-folk and remember that the Capitol of
mighty Rome was once saved by the cackling of its faithful geese.
II
Politics and Pacifism
Peace
The importance of securing international peace was recognized by the really
great men of former generations. But the technical advances of our times have
turned this ethical postulate into a matter of life and death for civilized mankind
to-day, and made the taking of an active part in the solution of the problem of
peace a moral duty which no conscientious man can shirk.
One has to realize that the powerful industrial groups concerned in the
manufacture of arms are doing their best in all countries to prevent the
peaceful settlement of international disputes, and that rulers can achieve this
great end only if they are sure of the vigorous support of the majority of their
peoples. In these days of democratic government the fate of the nations hangs
on themselves; each individual must always bear that in mind.
The Pacifist Problem
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very glad of this opportunity of saying a few words to you about the
problem of pacificism. The course of events in the last few years has once
more shown us how little we are justified in leaving the struggle against
armaments and against the war spirit to the Governments. On the other hand,
the formation of large organizations with a large membership can of itself bring
us very little nearer to our goal. In my opinion, the best method in this case is
the violent one of conscientious objection, with the aid of organizations for
giving moral and material support to the courageous conscientious objectors

23. in each country. In this way we may succeed in making the problem of
pacificism an acute one, a real struggle which attracts forceful natures. It is an
illegal struggle, but a struggle for people's real rights against their governments
in so far as the latter demand criminal acts of the citizen.
Many who think themselves good pacifists will jib at this out-and-out
pacifism, on patriotic grounds. Such people are not to be relied on in the hour
of crisis, as the World War amply proved.
I am most grateful to you for according me an opportunity to give you my
views in person.
Address to the Students' Disarmament Meeting
Preceding generations have presented us, in a highly developed science and
mechanical knowledge, with a most valuable gift which carries with it
possibilities of making our life free and beautiful such as no previous
generation has enjoyed. But this gift also brings with it dangers to our
existence as great as any that have ever threatened it.
The destiny of civilized humanity depends more than ever on the moral forces
it is capable of generating. Hence the task that confronts our age is certainly
no easier than the tasks our immediate predecessors successfully performed.
The foodstuffs and other goods which the world needs can be produced in far
fewer hours of work than formerly. But this has made the problem of the
division of labour and the distribution of the goods produced far more difficult.
We all feel that the free play of economic forces, the unregulated and
unrestrained pursuit of wealth and power by the individual, no longer leads
automatically to a tolerable solution of these problems. Production, labour,
and distribution need to be organized on a definite plan, in order to prevent
valuable productive energies from being thrown away and sections of the
population from becoming impoverished and relapsing into savagery. If
unrestricted sacro egoismo leads to disastrous consequences in economic
life, it is a still worse guide in international relations. The development of
mechanical methods of warfare is such that human life will become intolerable
if people do not before long discover a way of preventing war. The
importance of this object is only equalled by the inadequacy of the attempts
hitherto made to attain it.
People seek to minimize the danger by limitation of armaments and restrictive
rules for the conduct of war. But war is not like a parlour-game in which the
players loyally stick to the rules. Where life and death are at stake, rules and
obligations go by the board. Only the absolute repudiation of all war is of any
use here. The creation of an international court of arbitration is not enough.
There must be treaties guaranteeing that the decisions of this court shall be
made effective by all the nations acting in concert. Without such a guarantee
the nations will never have the courage to disarm seriously.
Suppose, for example, that the American, English, German, and French
Governments insisted on the Japanese Government's putting an immediate
stop to their warlike operations in China, under pain of a complete economic
boycott. Do you suppose that any Japanese Government would be found
ready to take the responsibility of plunging its country into such a perilous
adventure? Then why is it not done? Why must every individual and every
nation tremble for their existence? Because each seeks his own wretched
momentary advantage and refuses to subordinate it to the welfare and
prosperity of the community.

24. That is why I began by telling you that the fate of the human race was more
than ever dependent on its moral strength to-day. The way to a joyful and
happy state is through renunciation and self-limitation everywhere.
Where can the strength for such a process come from? Only from those who
have had the chance in their early years to fortify their minds and broaden
their outlook through study. Thus we of the older generation look to you and
hope that you will strive with all your might to achieve what was denied to us.
To Sigmund Freud
Dear Professor Freud,
It is admirable the way the longing to perceive the truth has
overcome every other desire in you. You have shown with
irresistible clearness how inseparably the combative and
destructive instincts are bound up with the amative and vital ones
in the human psyche. At the same time a deep yearning for that
great consummation, the internal and external liberation of
mankind from war, shines out from the ruthless logic of your
expositions. This has been the declared aim of all those who
have been honoured as moral and spiritual leaders beyond the
limits of their own time and country without exception, from
Jesus Christ to Goethe and Kant. Is it not significant that such
men have been universally accepted as leaders, in spite of the
fact that their efforts to mould the course of human affairs were
attended with but small success?
I am convinced that the great men--those whose achievements,
even though in a restricted sphere, set them above their
fellows--are animated to an overwhelming extent by the same
ideals. But they have little influence on the course of political
events. It almost looks as if this domain, on which the fate of
nations depends, had inevitably to be given over to violence and
irresponsibility.
Political leaders or governments owe their position partly to
force and partly to popular election. They cannot be regarded as
representative of the best elements, morally and intellectually, in
their respective nations. The intellectual èlite have no direct
influence on the history of nations in these days; their lack of
cohesion prevents them from taking a direct part in the solution
of contemporary problems. Don't you think that a change might
be brought about in this respect by a free association of people
whose work and achievements up to date constitute a guarantee
of their ability and purity of aim? This international association,
whose members would need to keep in touch with each other by
a constant interchange of opinions, might, by defining its attitude
in the Press--responsibility always resting with the signatories on
any given occasion--acquire a considerable and salutary moral
influence over the settlement of political questions. Such an
association would, of course, be a prey to all the ills which so
often lead to degeneration in learned societies, dangers which
are inseparably bound up with the imperfection of human nature.
But should not an effort in this direction be risked in spite of this?
I look upon the attempt as nothing less than an imperative duty.
If an intellectual association of standing, such as I have

25. described, could be formed, it would no doubt have to try to
mobilize the religious organizations for the fight against war. It
would give countenance to many whose good intentions are
paralysed to-day by a melancholy resignation. Finally, I believe
that an association formed of persons such as I have described,
each highly esteemed in his own line, would be just the thing to
give valuable moral support to those elements in the League of
Nations which are really working for the great object for which
that institution exists.
I had rather put these proposals to you than to anyone else in the
world, because you are least of all men the dupe of your desires
and because your critical judgment is supported by a most
earnest sense of responsibility.
Compulsory Service
From a letter
Instead of permission being given to Germany to introduce compulsory
service it ought to be taken away from everybody else: in future none but
mercenary armies should be permitted, the size and equipment of which
should be discussed at Geneva. This would be better for France than to have
to permit compulsory service in Germany. The fatal psychological effect of the
military education of the people and the violation of the individual's rights
which it involves would thus be avoided.
Moreover, it would be much easier for two countries which had agreed to
compulsory arbitration for the settlement of all disputes arising out of their
mutual relations to combine their military establishments of mercenaries into a
single organization with a mixed staff. This would mean a financial relief and
increased security for both of them. Such a process of amalgamation might
extend to larger and larger combinations, and finally lead to an "international
police," which would be bound gradually to degenerate as international
security increased.
Will you discuss this proposal with our friends by way of setting the ball
rolling? Of course I do not in the least insist on this particular proposal. But I
do think it essential that we should come forward with a positive programme;
a merely negative policy is unlikely to produce any practical results.
Germany and France
Mutual trust and co-operation between France and Germany can come about
only if the French demand for security against military attack is satisfied. But
should France frame demands in accordance with this, such a step would
certainly be taken very ill in Germany.
A procedure something like the following seems, however, to be possible. Let
the German Government of its own free will propose to the French that they
should jointly make representations to the League of Nations that it should
suggest to all member States to bind themselves to the following:--
(1) To submit to every decision of the international court of arbitration.
(2) To proceed with all its economic and military force, in concert with the
other members of the League, against any State which breaks the peace or
resists an international decision made in the interests of world peace.

26. Arbitration
Systematic disarmament within a short period. This is possible only in
combination with the guarantee of all for the security of each separate nation,
based on a permanent court of arbitration independent of governments.
Unconditional obligation of all countries not merely to accept the decisions of
the court of arbitration but also to give effect to them.
Separate courts of arbitration for Europe with Africa, America, and Asia
(Australia to be apportioned to one of these). A joint court of arbitration for
questions involving issues that cannot be settled within the limits of any one of
these three regions.
The International of Science
At a sitting of the Academy during the War, at the time when national and
political infatuation had reached its height, Emil Fischer spoke the following
emphatic words: "It's no use, Gentlemen, science is and remains international."
The really great scientists have always known this and felt it passionately, even
though in times of political confusion they may have remained isolated among
their colleagues of inferior calibre. In every camp during the War this mass of
voters betrayed their sacred trust. The international society of the academies
was broken up. Congresses were and still are held from which colleagues
from ex-enemy countries are excluded. Political considerations, advanced
with much solemnity, prevent the triumph of purely objective ways of thinking
without which our great aims must necessarily be frustrated.
What can right-minded people, people who are proof against the emotional
temptations of the moment, do to repair the damage? With the majority of
intellectual workers still so excited, truly international congresses on the grand
scale cannot yet be held. The psychological obstacles to the restoration of the
international associations of scientific workers are still too formidable to be
overcome by the minority whose ideas and feelings are of a more
comprehensive kind. These last can aid in the great work of restoring the
international societies to health by keeping in close touch with like-minded
people all over the world and resolutely championing the international cause in
their own spheres. Success on a large scale will take time, but it will
undoubtedly come. I cannot let this opportunity pass without paying a tribute
to the way in which the desire to preserve the confraternity of the intellect has
remained alive through all these difficult years in the breasts of a large number
of our English colleagues especially.
The disposition of the individual is everywhere better than the official
pronouncements. Right-minded people should bear this in mind and not allow
themselves to be misled and get angry: senatores boni viri, senatus autem
bestia.
If I am full of confident hope concerning the progress of international
organization in general, that feeling is based not so much on my confidence in
the intelligence and high-mindedness of my fellows, but rather on the
irresistible pressure of economic developments. And since these depend
largely on the work even of reactionary scientists, they too will help to create
the international organization against their wills.
The Institute for Intellectual Co-operation
During this year the leading politicians of Europe have for the first time drawn

27. the logical conclusion from the truth that our portion of the globe can only
regain its prosperity if the underground struggle between the traditional
political units ceases. The political organization of Europe must be
strengthened, and a gradual attempt made to abolish tariff barriers. This great
end cannot be achieved by treaties alone. People's minds must, above all, be
prepared for it. We must try gradually to awaken in them a sense of solidarity
which does not, as hitherto, stop at frontiers. It is with this in mind that the
League of Nations has created the Commission de coopération
intellectuelle. This Commission is to be an absolutely international and
entirely nonpolitical authority, whose business it is to put the intellectuals of
all
the nations, who were isolated by the war, into touch with each other. It is a
difficult task; for it has, alas, to be admitted that--at least in the countries
with
which I am most closely acquainted--the artists and men of learning are
governed by narrowly nationalist feelings to a far greater extent than the men
of affairs.
Hitherto this Commission has met twice a year. To make its efforts more
effective, the French Government has decided to create and maintain a
permanent Institute for intellectual co-operation, which is just now to be
opened. It is a generous act on the part of the French nation and deserves the
thanks of all.
It is an easy and grateful task to rejoice and praise and say nothing about the
things one regrets or disapproves of. But honesty alone can help our work
forward, so I will not shrink from combining criticism with this greeting to the
new-born child.
I have daily occasion for observing that the greatest obstacle which the work
of our Commission has to encounter is the lack of confidence in its political
impartiality. Everything must be done to strengthen that confidence and
everything avoided that might harm it.
When, therefore, the French Government sets up and maintains an Institute
out of public funds in Paris as a permanent organ of the Commission, with a
Frenchman as its Director, the outside observer can hardly avoid the
impression that French influence predominates in the Commission. This
impression is further strengthened by the fact that so far a Frenchman has also
been chairman of the Commission itself. Although the individuals in question
are men of the highest reputation, liked and respected everywhere,
nevertheless the impression remains.
Dixi et salvavi animam naeam. I hope with all my heart that the new
Institute, by constant interaction with the Commission, will succeed in
promoting their common ends and winning the confidence and recognition of
intellectual workers all over the world.
A Farewell
A letter to the German Secretary of the League of Nations
Dear Herr Dufour-Feronce,
Your kind letter must not go unanswered, otherwise you may get
a mistaken notion of my attitude. The grounds for my resolve to
go to Geneva no more are as follows: Experience has,
unhappily, taught me that the Commission, taken as a whole,

28. stands for no serious determination to make real progress with
the task of improving international relations. It looks to me far
more like an embodiment of the principle ut aliquid fieri
videatur. The Commission seems to me even worse in this
respect than the League taken as a whole.
It is precisely because I desire to work with all my might for the
establishment of an international arbitrating and regulative
authority superior to the State, and because I have this object
so very much at heart, that I feel compelled to leave the
Commission.
The Commission has given its blessing to the oppression of the
cultural minorities in all countries by causing a National
Commission to be set up in each of them, which is to form the
only channel of communication between the intellectuals of a
country and the Commission. It has thereby deliberately
abandoned its function of giving moral support to the national
minorities in their struggle against cultural oppression.
Further, the attitude of the Commission in the matter of
combating the chauvinistic and militaristic tendencies of
education in the various countries has been so lukewarm that no
serious efforts in this fundamentally important sphere can be
hoped for from it.
The Commission has invariably failed to give moral support to
those individuals and associations who have thrown themselves
without reserve into the business of working for an international
order and against the military system.
The Commission has never made any attempt to resist the
appointment of members whom it knew to stand for tendencies
the very reverse of those it is bound in duty to foster.
I will not worry you with any further arguments, since you will
understand my resolve yell enough from these few hints. It is not
my business to draw up an indictment, but merely to explain my
position. If I nourished any hope whatever I should act
differently--of that you may be sure.
The Question of Disarmament
The greatest obstacle to the success of the disarmament plan was the fact that
people in general left out of account the chief difficulties of the problem. Most
objects are gained by gradual steps: for example, the supersession of absolute
monarchy by democracy. Here, however, we are concerned with an
objective which cannot be reached step by step.
As long as the possibility of war remains, nations will insist on being as
perfectly prepared militarily as they can, in order to emerge triumphant from
the next war. It will also be impossible to avoid educating the youth in warlike
traditions and cultivating narrow national vanity joined to the glorification of
the warlike spirit, as long as people have to be prepared for occasions when
such a spirit will be needed in the citizens for the purpose of war. To arm is to
give one's voice and make one's preparations not for peace but for war.
Therefore people will not disarm step by step; they will disarm at one blow or
not at all.

29. The accomplishment of such a far-reaching change in the life of nations
presupposes a mighty moral effort, a deliberate departure from deeply
ingrained tradition. Anyone who is not prepared to make the fate of his
country in case of a dispute depend entirely on the decisions of an
international court of arbitration, and to enter into a treaty to this effect
without
reserve, is not really resolved to avoid war. It is a case of all or nothing.
It is undeniable that previous attempts to ensure peace have failed through
aiming at inadequate compromises.
Disarmament and security are only to be had in combination. The one
guarantee of security is an undertaking by all nations to give effect to the
decisions of the international authority.
We stand, therefore, at the parting of the ways. Whether we find the way of
peace or continue along the old road of brute force, so unworthy of our
civilization, depends on ourselves. On the one side the freedom of the
individual and the security of society beckon to us, on the other slavery for the
individual and the annihilation of our civilization threaten us. Our fate will be
according to our deserts.
The Disarmament Conference of 1932
I
May I begin with an article of political faith? It runs as follows: The State is
made for man, not man for the State. And in this respect science resembles
the State. These are old sayings, coined by men for whom human personality
was the highest human good. I should shrink from repeating them, were it not
that they are for ever threatening to fall into oblivion, particularly in these
days
of organization and mechanization. I regard it as the chief duty of the State to
protect the individual and give him the opportunity to develop into a creative
personality.
That is to say, the State should be our servant and not we its slaves. The State
transgresses this commandment when it compels us by force to engage in
military and war service, the more so since the object and the effect of this
slavish service is to kill people belonging to other countries or interfere with
their freedom of development. We are only to make such sacrifices to the
State as will promote the free development of individual human beings. To any
American all this may be a platitude, but not to any European. Hence we may
hope that the fight against war will find strong support among Americans.
And now for the Disarmament Conference. Ought one to laugh, weep, or
hope when one thinks of it? Imagine a city inhabited by fiery-tempered,
dishonest, and quarrelsome citizens. The constant danger to life there is felt as
a serious handicap which makes all healthy development impossible. The
magistrate desires to remedy this abominable state of affairs, although all his
counsellors and the rest of the citizens insist on continuing to carry a dagger in
their girdles. After years of preparation the magistrate determines to
compromise and raises the question, how long and how sharp the dagger is
allowed to be which anyone may carry in his belt when he goes out. As long
as the cunning citizens do not suppress knifing by legislation, the courts, and
the police, things go on in the old way, of course. A definition of the length
and sharpness of the permitted dagger will help only the strongest and most
turbulent and leave the weaker at their mercy. You will all understand the
meaning of this parable. It is true that we have a League of Nations and a